I’m a big alternate/augmented reality nut, as many of you may have guessed. I look at every development in wearable computers and think it won’t be long before our relationship to information is going to change. I think about how we find, pull and manipulate information and how museums are going to have to adapt to it.
Then I watch a video like this and get all excited.
This surprises me since I thought SL was pretty much dead because it was always empty and full of 3D billboards. The quote of “100 million a month” is clearly an over exaggeration.
Find and Replace almost every mention of “university” with “museum” and it’s still a poignant pair of articles. I would even go on to say museums are probably in an even better place to protect creativity.
New Blog: Piotr Adamczyk’s Museum Pipes. “A blog to augment a suite of Yahoo Pipes that work with Museum website and public collection information.”
I have no idea how it works, what Yahoo Pipes do exactly, but I know some of you will find it very interesting and it’s fascinating to look at.
Google Street View Car in Bristol by byrion. Used under Creative Commons.
This is both cool and tragic. Google Street View in the UK was announced a few days ago. For those who don’t know, this means Google drove around in a car with a massive amount of cameras on the roof that takes pictures every few metres. The pictures are then stitched together to form a panorama you can somewhat move around.
I am a fan of museums and maps, and think there’s a lot more interesting stuff to be done with museum objects and GPS co-ordinates. Where an object is located, where it has been, where is it going (on tour?) where it was dug out of the ground or created would make great additions to museum documentations. Then, release it with an API and let people make there own maps from the collections. I’m sure someone is already doing this.
This part is the tragedy. As part of their privacy policy, any image can be requested to be removed or censored. (I’m not going to link to any article to prove this as they all seem to be reactionary nonsense). There are many other “sensitive” images removed and it’s already affected the Tate’s map.
1) People who work in or with museums or directly related to the museum industry
2) Artists, Arts Organisations and Galleries
The NewCurator twitter account hopes that the accounts it follows will act as a definite list for people interested in these fields, so will aim to follow as many os possible.
The NewCurator twitter account will allow anyone to become a follower, as long as:
1) They are a real person
2) They are genuinely interested
The NewCurator twitter account will block any other accounts who are:
1) Bots and “zombies”
2) Bad attempts at advertising
3) Follower-hoarders, meaning having far too many followers and not related to museums and art, making there no chance in making a connection and saying anything meaningful.
4) Offensive.
NewCurator will:
1) Try to respond to all @s and DMs. Don’t be shy, I like hearing from people and will try to answer all questions.
2) NOT respond to “welcome DMs” that say nonsense like “thanks for following” like I just signed up to your newsletter. NOR will I DM you saying anything similar.
3) Use twitter to announce blog updates
4) Ask strange museum-related questions and crowd-source answers.
It must get to a point where they will have meetings blankly staring at each other with no more suggestions. It doesn’t look anytime soon.
The IMA have created a searchable database of all the deaccessioned items, opening up the whole process. Those already deaccessioned have information about where it went, how much it sold for and a Flickr-style tagging system. The objects planned for deaccessioning contain the date for auction, a valuation and the chance to add a comment.
All the deaccessioned objects are stated to be under the AAMD’s policy of selling artwork for the sole use of buying more objects. The front page contain IMA’s own deaccessioning policy, something CultureGrrl’s Lee Rosenbaum applauds. I would like to point out that mostly every UK museum makes it policy documents available, although UK deaccessioning is far more strict.
This is a very simple method to opening up the whole system that seems too shrouded and prone to miscommunication (See: Rose Art Museum). Donn Zaretsky (the Yin to Rosenbaum’s Yang) makes a comment about these being a database of “works it held ‘in trust’ for the public . . . until it decided to sell them” that I think neglects the fact that the IMA are revealing to the public what most museum’s seem to hide as a secret shame. Surely this is establishing a better foundation of trust with the public? Especially with the lines of communication that the IMA have opened?
As Lee Rosenbaum said, it would be good to have a “why” on the object listings. I suppose the only reason needed is that they all go through the deaccessioning policy. As the objects are up for auction, it’s probably not wise to say “it’s broken”.
In short, the School of Computing is developing a way to search all the textiles of the V&A and Liberty, not with keywords and text but with an uploaded image. Not only will FABRIC give results for exact matches but will also display similar textile. Perfect for matching carpets with drapes. I wonder if it would work with an uploaded picture of a particular object within the museum collection? Say, a decent close up photo of a dress would give more information of that particular dress.
Now, allow me my science-fictional tangent. Who remembers this video from a few years ago?
Photosynth takes a large collection of photos with GPS data and arranges it to form a sort-of 3D model with a 3D browser.
Now, I wonder if FABRIC could work with the texture and colour of 3D objects as well. Now, if you could link it with Photosynth, you could search a museum database via the photos you took on your day trip.
An Xiao has kicked off her twitter-based art installation @Platea. Read up on the background here and here.
@Platea is a stweet art collective of artists and non-artists who share an interest in the power of public art carried out in the digital megacity of social media.
Some of the projects can be subversive, tucked away in hidden locales in online space for only the most dedicated to find. Others can be overt (but not obvious), causing most daily users to pause and take notice. Some can be playful. Some can be serious. Some “local”, some “city-wide”. Almost all, we hope, will challenge members of the digital city in the same way the best public art does.
These are our stories, our tales from the stweets.
Excellent. I love this already. Everyone, follow @Platea.
I caused a bit of a stir last night over twitter (if the torrent of @replies is anything to go by) so I feel I should justify my position somewhat. If not, at least I’ll get it off my chest and you all can tear it apart and we all can move on.
The topic is multitouch screens. A few clarifications:
I don’t hate touchscreen. It makes writing on my PDA easier by the fact I can move the cursor with a million button presses.
I don’t think multitouch is rubbish. I would happily have one in my house and there are a lot of people doing a lot of work on it all with interesting results.
Anyone who tries to confuse multitouch with multi-user fails. Every game console with more than two ports is multi-user. There is a difference.
Now, onto the main criticisms on why I can’t get excited about multitouch screens and why won’t change anything in museums.
I wouldn’t be the cynic critic I am if I’m not sensitive to massive amounts of hype normally equaling the same amount of disappointment. Seeing it in James Bond film and CSI Miami didn’t make me think, “This will revolutionise museums”. My reaction tends to be, “Well, it’s pretty”. Multitouch screens are all over the place right now and there doesn’t seem to be a designed purpose for museums yet.
The ideal of “experiencing in group” is a funny one. A group is already in the museum, yet there’s a worry they’ll become lost souls if their hive mind isn’t collectively focused onto the same thing.
If your museum content needs a hulking lump of technology to make it interesting, you have much bigger problems.
I may be bias; I do like my technology to merge information with reality so needs to be mobile and cloud-computing based. In this day and age, having a computer interface with no connectivity, entirely standalone access makes it a kiosk. Sure, a very pretty, very expensive kiosk that’s done things a kiosk has never done before, but still a kiosk.
Put it this way; would you buy a computer that would only allow you on Facebook and do nothing else? Sure, it would be fun for a while to have a dedicated device and you could see what everyone else is doing, but there’s no email or even a word processor. Wouldn’t that seem a little thin?
I try to imagine scenarios with a multitouch screen.
One is a dozen people crowded around a single MTS. They all divide up the space to stand next to it, given themselves the same amount of touching space, probably that of… one normal sized monitor.
Second is a lot of people crowd around a MTS, flicking data at each other. The one person who wants to find something out (For research? Interest?) wishes they had there own screen away from distraction, so they go find… a computer.
There is a MTS with objects from a museum collection that you can move about, turn around etc. There is also an equally sized box with the handling objects in it. Everyone get really excited about the MTS. Why? Because people love a gimmick.
A MTS covered in children by parents who have discovered a form of digital creche.
Okay, if we replaced every single touchscreen in museums with multitouch tomorrow, would it make any long-term difference? Or would people get bored of them as they did regular touchscreens?
2D gestures, no matter how many touches, isn’t going to change anything. This video shows the next generation of technology gestures. (Okay, the video doesn’t show any 3D gestures, but how hard could it be to program?)
You know what is multi-user and has 3D gestures? A Nintendo Wii.
You know what was multi-user and had Gesture recognition? A Playstation Eyetoy (In 2003! Not exactly a 3D gesture when you think about it).
I keep thinking of the old joke of NASA spending billions on researching a pen that could write upside down and in zero-G whilst the Russians took a pencil.
A touchscreen with a button that says “zoom in” that I could do with one finger would be replaced the a three fingered movement that someone would have to explain to me. Whilst possibly used in a nice teknomagi-ish element isn’t making a UI simpler.
Okay, so several people could be pressing “buttons” on the same bit of screen, but… so what? The group-interaction doesn’t wash with me because putting these in museums stop making them for “groups”, they’re meant to be for the public. An activity that requires a group to complete (say some kind of game) needs me, on my own, to have to either join a group or not play. Well, I doubt a museum would do that, so all activities could be done independently so not to exclude anyone. So why can’t I have my own screen? It’s independent anyway, why do I have to breathe down someone’s neck to use it? And if it’s just me on my own with my own screen, the purpose of having hundreds of simultaneous finger-pokes becomes slightly redundant.
That’s it. To those making this stuff, keep up the good work. I imagine one of those multitouch tables being a fully functional DJ twin-turntables and mixing desk (which would be awesome). Over to you, comments welcome. Let’s keep it all nice.
Hi-Def means having a resolution of at least 1280 x 1080. Most digital projectors have this. The Sony SRX-S110 projector has a resolution of 4096 x 2160. The Tokyo National Museum has a brand new one.
Having such a ridiculous resolution means that objects that are far too delicate to be seen by the public can now be viewed with incredible detail.
If I understand the above article correctly, the newly digitised collection can be placed in a 3D environment so staff can do a tour around the object in its original context (in this case, paintings hanging in a temple) and objects can easily selected be turned around by remote.
This is a great toy to have in a museum that can open up all kinds of opportunities. I especially like the idea of using it to improve lectures. Having such a resource would only be as good as the presentation so I hope they’ll be making many productions for it.
Although, I cannot believe the terrible bias being demostrated by the Powerhouse Museum. How can they honestly depict such a view of the 80s? I am of course talking about how they’re not making a call for a working ZX Spectrum. I hope they plan to correct this one-sided view of history.
Technology: Seb Chan makes five important points about using QR codes in museums. Although, I would have solved problem 5 by printing the codes on thinner paper and backlit it. A small lightbox is better than moving a whole lighting rig, surely?
I created this in about 5 minutes and I have very little coding skill. It searches all nine National Museums that are involved in Creative Space. (Requires Javascript)
Now, save each interesting link in your browser bookmarks or delicious.com and give it tags. Sign up to Google Notebook or Zoho to make/share notes. Join Facebook/Flickr/Twitter for social interaction with similar minded people.
I got an email the other day about the new Creative Spaces Beta site because of my twitter send about the museum lovers social network. (It was actually a blog post and apparently quite a few people got the same email, but I digress)
Creative Spaces throws open the collections of: The V&A, British Museum, Tate, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Royal Armouries, The Wallace Collection and the Imperial War Museum
It allows you to search all the collections at once, tag and store items in notebooks and groups, and upload your own images, videos and notes to share creative inspiration with others. This is a nonprofit, public sector project, and it’s the first time that national museums have collaborated in this way.
Okay, so it was PR disguised as a personal email. No matter, these jobs need to be done and word needs to get out considering how the BBC report failed to give an actual link. So I signed up.
I see four things. (1) Start a notebook (2) Start a group (3) watch a video (4) Search the collections.
Wait a minute. Notebooks? I’m guessing doing research and gathering links from the site could be useful, but there’s Google Notebooks and Zoho which do this better. “Tagging and storing” could be done with delicious.com. So what is the point of a (2) group? A collaborative notebook? Why isn’t this a function within notebooks? The video section has 27 videos in total… from Vimeo. I had problems trying to watch most of them.
Now, on to a major MAJOR issue. Try this experiment for me
On Creative Spaces, type in “monkey” into search. You’ll get about 117 results from all nine collections
Click on the “Victoria & Albert Museum (35)” link on the right. You’ll get the V&A’s list.
The second one down is “Mechanical Monkey”
Click on “view larger image”, you’ll get taken to the V&A’s collection site.
Now go to Google and search “site:collections.vam.ac.uk monkey”
What’s the top result?
So, “throwing open the collections” and “the first time that national museums have collaborated in this way” means reskinning a set of Google searches. Can someone tell me how much money was spent on this?
This isn’t a Beta release. This is barely an Alpha release. Hell, there isn’t anything to warrant this as a “social network”. There is no new content here.
You want to see how to do a Beta release, look at ArtBabble.
Even though this quote from L. Gordon Crovitz’s article in the New York Times is concerning newspapers and paid-subscriptions for web content, I feel it is still poignant for museums who, after all, deal in information.
When author Stewart Brand coined the expression “Information wants to be free,” he focused on how technology makes it cheap and easy to communicate and share knowledge. But the rest of his quote is rarely noticed.
This says, “Information also wants to be expensive.” The right information in today’s complex economy and society can make a huge difference in our professional and personal lives. Not having this information can also make a big difference, especially if someone else does have it. And for valuable information, online is a great new way for it to be valued.
Musematic stumbles upon an iPhone app to help a museum. A spirit level, I think, from the iHandy Carpenter app or the free iHandy Level (under utilities on the Apple App Store).
There’s got to be some other things useful for museums. Can’t find any app that would help with exhibition design. I imagine something that can act as a wifi hard drive so people could copy information about an exhibition to their iPhones would be useful. Or even an app with an entire museum’s database on it. An app that has all tour maps for on it would be useful.
Thanks to Tyler Green for giving me the invite to ArtBabble.org, Indianapolis Museum of Art’s project.
On first impression, it seems like a re-skinned art channel on YouTube or Vimeo. Then you see that all the videos come directly from institutions (at the moment, IMA). In this 2.0 world, its good to see the user relegated to the role of viewer, but one who can comment and still have the social experience with other users. The creation of content is left to the professionals so everything is good rather than having to wade through rubbish to get to it .
The other thing is that it works. Yes, it’s still in beta (what isn’t?) so I imagine the categorisation will continue to be built, but the FLV player is just a delight compared to others. Skipping around is easy, sharing and embedding is easy, watching the video is just easy and therefore enjoyable. Creative Commons licensing, mp4 (iPod) downloads and transcripts make this very special. The design of the site is just so damn pretty. You get the idea this is a social-video site with the intention of a professional resource as well as expanding museums.
As I spend the rest of my evening watching things, I leave you with something I found: Hirokazu Kosaka’s Calligraphy Demonstration. Perfect viewing for an already hard week.
Babble On.
QUICK ADDITION: You can’t see it on the embedded video, but when watching the video on the ArtBabble, the video playback bar along the bottom has blue lines over it. At first, I thought this was for subtitles. I’ve just noticed that when the video moves over these blue lines, there’s a menu to the right that you can open up and be given more information. Like the above video has lots of pages that link to other calligraphy-related content, like collections, other videos, pictures of objects etc.
2) Have you met “hanneorla” and seen all the amazing artwork she looks at on her travels? I’m not only impressed by her beautiful images, and the fact that she seems to totally geek out on individual sculptures, but she also adds lots of meta data to each image she uploads. Take note. She’s doing it up right. And what she’s doing is basically documenting the condition of mostly outdoor sculpture. Imagine if someone would plug her into Wikipedia Loves Art. She’d win every competition at every museum! Check out her sets.
3) I don’t suppose I even have to list this one, but I will: The Commons
More than 500 Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) records have been enhanced with new information provided by the Flickr Community.
b) The Brooklyn Museum uses high res images of 19th century Egypt, and shows earlydocumentationphotography. I can still here one of my favorite art history professors reminding me the importance of photo documenting historic sites, because “you never know when it’s not going to be there anymore.”
4) I can compare the Hepworth at the IMA to one in Yorkshire, England. Now, where are the other 6 sculptures in this edition? Wouldn’t I like to know…
Nice to see Bluecasting being used for something other than bluespam. Although this is another one of those technologies which is a few years old but is still considered “new” because of the limited application. Connecting phones to transfer files (normally ringtones), connecting phone-to-pc, connecting some kind of game or Bluecasting and that’s about it for uses. Personally, I turn Bluetooth on my phone once every two months because of the power drain. So I may be missing the point entirely.
What makes this exhibition innovative is the introduction of choice at the start. By holding your “Bluetooth enabled device” (I’m guessing phone) near a section of wall, you can choose what language and what kind of content you want. The system will remembers your preference as you walk around the exhibition.
What would be interesting would be the choice of difficulty levels. Say, “Children”, “Teens”, “Adults” and “Experts” so that the language and the style could be tailored to allow for more inclusive distribution of information. Children don’t get lost, adults don’t get bored and teens and “experts” don’t feel patronised. Of course, you’d still need a Bluetooth phone that can play the media files, so it may not be that inclusive.
I’ve often said that more people learnt more about WWII from the Medal of Honour games. Seem Microsoft will throw money at this to find out more. Krista McCracken at Historical Reminiscents has more.
This is what I call innovative. Mostly Greasemonkey is mostly used to remove ads in Myspace or change CSS in Google. This script helps deliver some content.
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